“I’m glad we met you,” Etta said sincerely, struck all over again that he was her family; her concept of the word had changed again. “When do you think you’ll be leaving, though?”
“I would have left a week ago,” Hasan replied, “but some of the tribes make the desert a dangerous place to be alone. So, I wait—it should not be long now.”
“Indeed?” Nicholas said. “And what desert would this be?”
Hasan nearly dropped the photo, a surprised laugh tumbling out of him. “Perhaps that is where we can make another beginning? My new friends, may I be the first to humbly welcome you to the Queen of Cities, Dimashq. Damascus.”
NEITHER ETTA NOR NICHOLAS HAD KNOWN WHAT TIME IT WAS when they came through the passage, but after Hasan gently informed them that it was three o’clock in the morning, his initial hostility made more sense.
“Rest now,” he said, taking one of the candles with him. “Tomorrow, I will show you the house, the city, and we will try to understand Abbi’s riddle.”
Nicholas’s lips parted, his shoulders tightening as if he was about to protest this, but Etta put a hand on his arm and said simply, “Thank you. Good night.”
When the door shut firmly behind Hasan, Nicholas pulled away, crossing over to the bed in several rapid, stiff strides. Rather than sit down on it, he pulled the top blanket off, and without sparing even a glance at her, moved to the opposite end of the room to spread it out over a few floor cushions he gathered on the way.
Etta felt a sharp twist in the pit of her stomach. What had she thought? That they’d be sharing the bed? That they’d pick up where they left off earlier that day?
Nicholas could put such a cool distance between himself and others. She felt him trying to do it now, letting the silence speak for him, keeping his back to her as he shrugged off his filthy shirt and folded it neatly. She was almost too aware of him now. He filled a room just by standing in it.
This was a completely different Nicholas than the one who had literally kissed the breath out of her. She’d felt his heartbeat chasing hers. He had been the warm wave that had carried her away from everything else, and he hadn’t needed to say a single word in order for her to know that he was as desperate for her as she was for him. She wasn’t inexperienced. She knew what that felt like.
Then it’s the same for you?
Nicholas had kept any number of things from her, and he was well within his right to do so. He showed only a fraction of what he felt, even when he was being insulted in the crudest, vilest ways imaginable. But alone with him, she’d felt him let go, and she’d recognized what a rare privilege it was to be able to find him beneath all the stiff layers.
Etta tried to run her hands back through her hair and failed; she turned to look for the old silver brush she’d seen on the desk. Her thoughts were still churning when she sat back down and began to work the brush through the tangled ends of her waves.
Nicholas was back up on his feet, pacing the room, his hands clasped behind his back. Etta could feel the weight of his thoughts take shape between them as he put out a few of the candles at the other end of the room.
She wanted to know what he was thinking, but was afraid to ask, on the off chance that his mood had something to do with how quickly they were approaching the end of this. There wasn’t enough time.
You are leaving, she thought, even as a small, traitorous voice whispered, but not yet.…
“Come here a second,” Etta said softly.
Nicholas stopped, his hands going slack at his side. He didn’t move.
“Please,” she said, kicking her shoes off and standing again. She wove through the discarded rainbow of silk cushions, the carpets soft and plush beneath her feet. She took up the basin of water Hasan had left behind.
Returning to her perch on the bed, Etta dipped the last of the clean cloths into the water and carefully squeezed out the excess. Nicholas hesitated, but moved toward her in the end, approaching like a wary cat.
Before he could protest, Etta took his right hand and held it firmly, picking up the cloth to dab at the broken skin he’d reopened across his knuckles. The cuts were already scabbing over, but she worked as delicately as she could to clean away the blood. His fingers squeezed hers, almost reflexively; his eyes were hooded as he watched her work.
“I wish you had gone a little easier on him,” she said.
“He came in here thrashing a sword around. Was I supposed to stand idly by and do nothing?” he huffed.
“Well, you weren’t supposed to try to rearrange his face with your fist.”
“I wasn’t,” Nicholas protested. “He lunged up into it several times. I was only in the way.”
“You’re ridiculous,” she informed him. “Will you please apologize to him tomorrow?”